What Does It Really Mean to Be a Leader?
Saint Mary's hosted its first Student Leadership Summit this spring. Hear from student and alumni voices on how leadership is often misunderstood—and why more students can and should strive to lead in their communities.
When it comes to leadership, one of the truisms is that there’s no one single way to do it right. More than that, says David Holquin ’03, “So much of what we think about leadership is wrong.” Holquin was president of Justin-Siena High School in Napa, California, is now President of De La Salle High School in Concord, California, and currently serves on the Saint Mary’s College Board of Trustees. He was also the keynote speaker at the inaugural Saint Mary’s Student Leadership Summit, hosted in March.
And when it comes to leaders, Holquin says, “We think that someone has to have all the answers, that someone has to have done it before, that there has to be a right time or right position… but in truth, so much of how we show up is not about talent, it’s about showing up with intention.”
Finding your “why”
This inaugural Student Leadership Summit brought together more than 150 undergraduate and graduate students who heard from fellow student leaders as well as alumni to speak on their experiences as leaders. Panelists answered questions such as what it means to be a leader—and what are the benefits of striving for leadership anyway?
As a student at Saint Mary’s College, Holquin served as Associated Students President. What most wouldn’t know is that his leadership journey was, for a long time before that, full of failure. After having served as class president for three years prior, and losing four back-to-back elections in high school, Holquin felt utterly dismayed. But, as he shared at the Summit, moments of loss were crucial to helping him understand what he truly wanted from being a leader. In other words, they helped him find his “why.”
“What surprised me about losing those elections was that my ‘why’ didn’t have to do with being successful in student government, but rather about being of service to others,” Holquin said.
Finding your “why,” Holquin explained, is what defines leadership in one's life. Without intention, it is easy to misunderstand the purpose of leadership. What follows naturally is understanding that being a leader will ultimately benefit your community—even if it feels like you have little impact—because by stepping into leadership roles, you encourage others to join you and to travel outside of their comfort zones. That, in turn, helps people connect. To Holquin, no position of leadership—be it in a club, as a resident advisor, or a WOWie (a Weekend of Welcome Student Leader) is without value. And sometimes all it takes is that one person to reach out and extend an invitation.
“There is often a misconception that there is a singular leader archetype,” he said. “As if it is someone must have it all together, or be someone who everyone looks up to, or listens to, or is always diving in and sharing his or her opinion. While some certainly fit those descriptions, there are so many things that don’t require you to be ready-made as a leader.”
“There is often a misconception that there is a singular leader archetype,” he said. “As if it is someone must have it all together, or be someone who everyone looks up to, or listens to, or is always diving in and sharing his or her opinion. While some certainly fit those descriptions, there are so many things that don’t require you to be ready-made as a leader,” Holquin said. “For me, a lot of my experience as a leader came from answering invitations to serve.”
No such thing as a solitary leader
Holquin’s idea of invitation extends into what Maile Shelley ’21, MA ’22, also thinks of leadership. The major word that comes to mind for her: collaboration.
“For me, leadership is really collaborative,” Shelley says. “We can't lead alone. It's something that we have to do with other people. Anybody can be taught to be a leader…anyone can be taught the skills and necessary traits.”
Shelley was one of three student panelists at the summit. She also works at De La Salle High School, serving since last August as the Campus Minister for Service and Justice. Had someone gone back in time a few years prior and told her this would be the case, Shelley wouldn’t have believed it in the slightest, she says. For most of her life, she considered herself an introvert and to an extent, still does. She credits her different jobs at SMC as important stepping stones that helped her find confidence.
“When I joined the Mission and Ministry Center my senior year, I was terrified,” Shelley says. “I felt out of place because I hadn’t joined earlier. But as soon as I joined, I immediately felt like that was the place I wanted to be.”
Working at SMC helped Shelley understand that colleagues were there to support her, dissolving her notion that leaders needed to do everything alone. Originally, Shelley applied to be an administrative assistant at De La Salle. When she told this to Samantha Alberto ’12, MA ’19, one of her mentors as well as the Director of Residential Experiences at Saint Mary’s, Alberto pushed her to apply for the position with Service and Justice. “I needed that reminder to believe in myself,” Shelley says.
Naturally, Shelley is still navigating what it means to be a teacher. What helps her grow as a leader are challenges—such as being assigned to take the entire junior class on ten consecutive trips to the Tenderloin in San Francisco to do service at Saint Anthony’s Foundation. “I rolled up the first day with thirty kids walking behind me, and the first person I see is a Saint Mary's alumni who was in charge of working with all the groups. She was wearing a Saint Mary's sweatshirt, and I immediately thought ‘This is amazing. I'm gonna be fine, because I have a Saint Mary’s student in my corner.’ We saw a lot of growth and change over the course of those ten trips, in the students and in ourselves.”
Welcoming others through leadership
Allen Cañez '23 was also drawn to leadership roles through engaging with student government at his high school. But without the right encouragement, he may have never found the confidence to take that on. For Cañez, the one person who set the stage for him to seek out leadership in high school was his ninth grade Biology teacher. When he wasn’t doing well in the class, she took notice and reached out to him.
“My very first semester of high school biology, I failed the class. And one day, my teacher finally sat me down,” Cañez says. “We just started talking in terms of what it is that I truly wanted to gain from being here at my school.”
This was the beginning of Cañez’s journey into finding his “why.” But the trail wasn’t consistently onwards and upwards from there. Cañez started his junior year at Saint Mary’s as a transfer student, and he initially hesitated getting involved with campus life, figuring other students wouldn’t want help from a transfer student. But at the end of his second year at SMC, Cañez signed up to be a WOWie for the incoming first-year class. That experience was what opened his eyes up to the power a leader holds, and how they can guide others. For him, it means providing what he would have wanted from a leader when he was a shy, nervous transfer student: being someone who creates an open, welcoming space for all.
“Being a WOWie is one of the best ways to begin getting involved, because it's a way for you to give new students the experience of welcome that you would have wanted to be approached with if you were a first- year,” Cañez says.
Cañez quickly became involved with other clubs and organizations. The tight-knit nature of the SMC community leads to an interconnected network between groups that isn’t always present at other colleges, he notes. Even as he finishes up a busy final semester, Cañez still makes time to engage with different clubs and organizations on campus.
“I don't see leadership as something where I'm micromanaging, or commanding, or making you do something you don’t want to,” he says. “That's absolutely not it. What I as a leader try to do and try to strive for, is to create a safe space for everyone to authentically be themselves.”
As for the subject that flummoxed him at the beginning of high school, how did he fare with it in college? When he graduates from Saint Mary’s in May, it will be with a degree in Biology.
How leadership fosters transferable skills
The word Natalie Zander ’22 uses when describing what leadership means to her is empathy. “I think empathy and leadership are deeply intertwined,” she says. “Yes, it's important to be able to lead a group of people and understand their needs, or understand the task at hand and how your team can best succeed at it. But you also have to understand your team. You have to know the people, you have to know their strengths, their weaknesses, and their abilities.”
Zander has participated in a variety of leadership roles across Saint Mary’s. In 2019 she served as a Sustainability Leader. She has guided prospective students as a Student Ambassador for SMC and served as the Lasallian Peer Minister for Liturgy for two years. But she didn’t have a straightforward path to becoming such an active student within the Saint Mary’s community. During the transition to online learning back in 2020 due to COVID-19, Zander was serving as both a Student Ambassador and the Peer Minister for Liturgy. It was a difficult and confusing time for her—as it was for so many. She credits the people she worked with for keeping her going, even when she was ready to throw in the towel.
“They are leaders, no doubt. But you can be a leader in so many different ways. You just have to find what that means for you.”
“During that time, I remember hearing from my supervisors nearly every hour. I would get some updates, either from Philip Goodwin or from Brother David.”
Goodwin is a 2016 Saint Mary’s grad and a resident director; this year he also took on responsibilities as associate director of alumni engagement and events. Brother David Caretti, FSC ’99, serves as the director of Vocation Ministry for the Brothers’ District of San Francisco New Orleans; he also serves on the SMC Board of Trustees.
Zander recalls them keeping her in touch with basic, timely information. “‘Here's what I heard from the campus, I wanted to relay this info to you, in case you didn't get it,’” they might say. “Or maybe something as simple as them asking ‘How are you? I know, you're having to go back to SoCal and make your way home. Is everything alright? Is your family safe?’”
The concern for Zander’s wellbeing from members of the community reaffirmed the value she held not only in herself, but in her ability to carry out her responsibilities on campus. For this she says she is incredibly grateful, because it’s through these experiences that she learned the way leadership can give students “transferable skills”—those only obtained through specific experiences and challenges that aren’t always clearly defined. A good example of this is how Zander, who this summer will head to New York City to attend the NYU Summer Publishing Program, gained a hands-on understanding of what it means to be in a managerial role in publishing during her time as the Peer Minister for Liturgy. For almost two years, every Sunday she would write the script for mass. The job forced Zander to improve her understanding of editing and publishing that she might not have learned in a classroom setting, something that speaks to the benefits of stepping into a leadership role—even when it’s difficult.
“We think of leaders as people who get up in front of crowds, and lead huge teams and engage in public speaking all the time,” Zander says. “They are leaders, no doubt. But you can be a leader in so many different ways. You just have to find what that means for you.”
GET INVOLVED and find out more about student leadership opportunities at Saint Mary’s through Student Life.
CELEBRATE student leaders on campus May 10 at the 2023 Student Leadership Celebration.
Sam Nobile ’25 is studying English at Saint Mary’s and serves as a student writer with the Office of Marketing and Communications.